"That is my son," he said, but his voice had already broken under the weight of it. "Move aside."
The guard did not move. Could not. Not without order.
And the fact that even a father's grief stopped at the boundary of command only deepened the horror settling through the room.
Another elder had gone pale enough to seem bloodless beneath his fur. His hands trembled openly, not with anger, but with a disbelief too large to contain.
"No…" he whispered, staring at the kneeling man before him as though refusing what his own eyes insisted upon. "He was sent north. He was under border watch. I placed him there myself…"
The words dissolved as he spoke them, because whatever story he had believed of his son's loyalty had just been dragged into the council chamber in chains.
The third father did not remain standing at all.
He dropped to his knees.
Not before Thessian.
Before the restrained man.
Before his son.
